Initiative sets its sights on complex gill disease in farmed salmon

Funding: $3,600,000

Researchers are developing genomic tools to pinpoint the risk factors for CGD and help aquaculturists spot and manage it for better outcomes.

Salmon production in Canada is under increasing threat from infectious and non-infectious diseases such as complex gill disease (CGD), for which there is currently no available vaccines or therapeutics. A 3-year, $3.6 million project will validate biomarkers of healthy and compromised gills of Atlantic salmon and use these to develop an early warning system for the development of CGD in Atlantic salmon production sites across Canada. The resulting genomics-enabled tools for fish health will guide the management and intervention strategies for CGD.

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$4.7 million initiative sets its sights on complex gill disease in farmed salmon

December 2021

For reasons unknown, farmed east coast Atlantic salmon have so far escaped the costly rise in complex gill disease (CGD) experienced in net pens on the west coast and as far away as Norway and Scotland.

“CGD does occur in the North Atlantic, and in quite severe cases in European salmon aquaculture operations, but it has not had the same severity in Atlantic Canada,” confirms Dr. Mark Fast, Professor of Fish Health and Immunology at the Atlantic Veterinary College, University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI).

Whether the east coast can remain largely unaffected by the disease is also an open question. However, a new research initiative, begun in August, is aimed at checking CGD nationally and sparing the east coast salmon industry the scale of the west coast problem.

As the academic project leader, Dr. Fast, and his long-time research collaborator, Dr. Matthew Rise, at the Department of Ocean Sciences, Memorial University, have joined forces with British Columbia-based industry, government and academic scientists on a three-year, $3.6 million Complex Gill Disease Initiative (CGDI) under the Genomic Applications Partnership Program of Genome Canada. The initiative is managed by Genome Atlantic, in partnership with Genome British Columbia.

Together the researchers are developing genomic tools to pinpoint the risk factors for CGD and help aquaculturists spot and manage it for better outcomes. At the moment there are no vaccines or therapeutics for CGD available.